


Peace Is Everything In A Storm

by hypernomad



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 23:12:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1365229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypernomad/pseuds/hypernomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything’s still broken and fucked up, but there’s something solid and acknowledged and real that it’s fucking up on, and Ian knows as well as Mickey that there’s permanence to that; there’s an understanding that this thing between them will never die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peace Is Everything In A Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for season four, kind of speculative. TW; allusions to rape, self-harm, and suicide.

Mickey takes a deep breath before he pushes the door to Ian’s room open, his grubby fingerless gloves contrasting starkly on the sterile white of the door. He can’t tell if he feels out of place here or whether the queasy feeling he gets is from the oppressive strip lights and the pond-green linoleum or the unsettling awareness of actually being in precisely the _right_ place. He shakes his head. He can’t be losing it right now. Ian needs him.

The younger boy stands up as he enters, wearing a pair of jogging pants, slippers and a navy sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair is cropped short and curly again, but not buzzed, and there’s something a little more together about him; or at least, he doesn’t look quite as off-colour as he did before. A nervous smile splits his face and his eyes soften as they settle on Mickey’s.

“Hey,” he says, wringing his hands in front of him and Mickey notices that he’s wearing his watch again. The realisation makes something warm and familiar turn over inside him; like seeing a photo from a long time ago.

 “Hey.” He replies, feeling a little ridiculous.

“You okay?” Ian asks, taking a step towards him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Mickey says, his fingers twitching. He really wants a cigarette. Why did he have to look so vulnerable? “Are you?”

Ian’s quiet for a moment while he nods his head and gives a small smile. “Yeah, I’m… I’m doing better.” He explains softly, sitting down on the slightly deflated-looking mattress behind him again and motioning for Mickey to join him. “I’ve missed you though.” He adds after a moment.

Mickey smiles and raises his eyebrows, sliding his coat off of his shoulders and placing it beside him on the end of the bed. “Well you’re the one who barred everybody from comin’ to visit you.”

Ian smiles awkwardly in return and looks away. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I needed to get better and… I thought it’d be easier to do it if I wasn’t being… I just needed to be alone. Especially when I was coming off the drugs. I was really difficult to be around then.”

“You don’t need to apologise man.” Mickey says, shuffling slightly. “I’m not pissed with you or anything.”

“I know, but still… five months is a long time.” Ian says. He runs his thumb over the scar on his wrist a little nervously and stares at the floor for a little too long. “Did you miss me?” He asks quietly, looking up at him again.

Mickey sighs and gives him a defeated look. “I missed you like a fucking limb, man.”

Ian looks back up at him with that pitiful, kicked-puppy look in his eyes and it reminds Mickey of how young he is, and how he doesn’t deserve any of this. He remembers having to cradle the younger boy’s head against his shoulder when he didn’t even have the energy to sit up and how he’d had to spoon-feed him while Ian looked up at him from his lax position against him, glassy-eyed and more out-of-it than Mickey had ever seen him.

“I mean it,” Mickey says, “I miss you.”

Ian’s quiet for a few more moments while they look at each other, and then he shuffles closer and pulls the brunet nearer to him, tentatively wrapping his arms around him. “Thank you.” He whispers.

Mickey tenses and feels like someone’s just stabbed him for a brief, terrifying moment, but it soon passes when he remembers that they’re in a room behind a closed door. Closing his eyes, he slowly wraps an arm around Ian’s middle and strokes his back. When Ian sighs against him and buries his face in his neck, Mickey pulls away and then pushes the younger boy back gently to lay on the bed.

After a moment of awkward shuffling, they settle into a comfortable position on the bed, lying side by side and pressed together with Mickey’s head buried into the crook of Ian’s neck. The bed sheets are dry and starchy against Mickey’s hip where his shirt’s ridden up a little and he fidgets until Ian wraps an arm around him and Mickey shifts until he’s comfortable. Sighing, Ian seems to relax against him and Mickey presses his palm flat against his shoulder blade and rubs gently, breathing the other man’s scent in. There’s something calming about the fleshy, soapy scent of him; surrounded by the stripped-raw sterile hospital smell, it’s like a flower in the snow.

Closing his eyes, Mickey leans into it. He burrows his face deeper into the soft fabric and the slightly stubbly flesh of his neck and allows Ian to tighten his arms around him, rubbing his own hand down his back and tucking a leg between Ian’s calves at the end of the tired single bed.

“I thought I’d lost you.” Mickey mutters after a long, drowsy silence, his voice muffled slightly in the tight space between them.

Ian’s owlish eyes blink open and Mickey thinks they’re _pretty,_ for fuck’s sake. They’re sad when they look down at him though, and a little wet, and his mouth is doing that unbearable wobbly pout thing it does when he’s upset. What is it Lip calls it? ‘The chin’?

“I know.” He says, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

Mickey doesn’t reply, he just presses himself closer and sighs.

“I mean it,” Ian says, his hand fisting suddenly in the fabric of Mickey’s shirt. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody. I didn’t mean it—it was the Bipolar—“

“I know, man, I know,” Mickey says gently, rubbing Ian’s back and stroking the side of his face with the other hand. “Calm down.”

Ian nods and swallows while his heart rate slows back down and then he takes a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.” He breathes, pulling Mickey impossibly closer and burying his nose in his hair.

“It’s okay.” Mickey says quellingly. “I told you.”

Ian sighs and it’s a while until he speaks again, and when he does, it’s quiet and uncertain and trembling. “I just—I couldn’t talk about it for so long…”

Mickey’s eyes open as he thinks back to what Ian had written to him in a long, rambling letter sent two months previously. He doesn’t speak while Ian searches for words.

“You know… about what I wrote in my letter.”

The room suddenly seems very still; the faint nattering of voices in the patients’ lounge around the corner from Ian’s room and the faraway squeaking and slamming of heavy doors in the labyrinthine hallways fading away into a calm that defeats its purpose by being too fucking _controlled_. Everything zones in on Ian’s voice and Mickey is frozen while he listens to what he knows is going to rub salt into the torrid, enraged wound that was sliced open in him when he read those crushing words.

“I couldn’t talk about it. Not out loud, at first.” Ian continues, his voice quiet and shaky. “In therapy, I couldn’t talk about what had happened… So, I just started writing letters. To Lip and Fiona at first, ‘cause that was easy… and then to Debs and Carl, just asking them how school’s going and whatever. I wrote one to Mandy… I didn’t tell her everything, but I just wrote down some of how I was feeling and that I hoped she was doing okay. Then I wrote letters to myself, and sent them to my therapist… and then I wrote to you. It was easier to get it out that way…” Ian sniffs and runs a hand through his hair. “But I felt like such a coward for not saying it to someone’s face—“

“You’re not a coward.” Mickey says, feeling a wave of protectiveness flood him. “You deal with your shit however you damn well want to. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.” He says, looking up at him. “Don’t spare anybody else’s feelings, alright?”

Ian nods, but he doesn’t meet Mickey’s gaze. Instead he worries his lower lip between his teeth and watches Mickey’s fingers shake a little against his chest before closing his eyes and resting his head against the pillow and burying his head in Mickey’s hair once again. He smells like a weird blend of citrusy hair product, cigarette smoke and the rain, and Ian can’t get enough of it—he’s missed ever bit of the older boy like a limb and now everything he’s needed for months is right there in front of him and he just wants to melt into it. He wraps a palm around the side of Mickey’s head and strokes a thumb over his temple, breathing him in.

“I love you so much.” He sighs, feeling more at peace than he has for months. The tension leaves him like he’s undone a shoelace; letting go of the strain and the calm settling like dust.

Mickey’s eyes open where his face is pressed against Ian’s chest and he smiles involuntarily, his heart fluttering in his chest and something coiling pleasantly in his gut. He’s alive with it for a few moments and he’s grinning so wide that his teeth are brushing against the fabric over Ian’s chest, but he doesn’t care to stop. He’s never felt so protected or cherished, nor such a powerful need to return it and it feels almost too good; like he’s going to shatter with the intensity of it. Turning his head a little, he grasps and releases fistfuls of Ian’s sweater a few times. “I love you too.” He says, just as quietly and intimately as Ian says it.

Ian’s delighted laugh is muffled into the pillow, and Mickey’s grinning back at him as he pulls away slightly to look up at him affectionately. Ian rubs his forehead with the back of his hand and looks relieved, and Mickey presses his hand against the side of his face to stroke his cheek with his thumb. Ian leans in for a kiss and Mickey meets him halfway. It’s deep and loving, and so calming and cathartic that it doesn’t take much for them to all but melt into the uncomfortable mattress while they deepen it.

Everything’s still broken and fucked up, but there’s something solid and acknowledged and real that it’s fucking up on, and Ian knows as well as Mickey that there’s permanence to that; there’s an understanding that this thing between them will never die. They would never be meaningless to each other, they would never not feel a thing, and that means everything to them.


End file.
